May 8, 2013

Chai Masala Cake / Masala Tea Cake / Indian Tea Spice Cake

I love baking simple, elegant, easy, soft, plain, not too sweet cakes which pairs beautifully with a cup of chai or coffee. I love cream cakes, but i don't crave for it often. I love chocolate cakes anytime, there is no time limit for it. But plain cakes are my favorite.

When talking about cakes, i have a special addiction in making streusal cakes. There is something special about this kind of cakes. It take the ordinary simple cakes to the next level. My recent favorite is this cake. When i came across this recipe i want to bake it immediately. I had all the ingredients except chai masala powder. Infact you can make your own chai masala. But i was so lazy to make a batch. So last week when i was shopping i picked a packet of that and was ready to bake. The chai masala gave a lovely aroma to the cakes and my entire house smelled so heavenly when i was baking this.

The one thing which i modified in this recipe is the butter, i substituted it with oil, still the cake turned out so soft and moist.The yogurt which we add in this recipe made the cake so moist. The entire batch disappeared the same day itself. It was that good. Everyone loved it so much. The cashews which we add in the topping gave a lovely crunch to the cakes and made it so special. So try this cake and let me know how it turned out.

Method:Take a 20 cm loaf pan and butter it generously, dust it with flour and tap off the excess. Set it aside till use.Preheat the oven to 180 Degree C / 360 Degree F.Take flour, baking powder and baking soda in a sifter and sieve them. Set them aside till use.Now make the streusal topping, Take all the ingredients for streusal topping in a bowl and fork it through till it resembles crumble. Set it aside till use.Now start making the batter. Take oil, sugar and vanilla in a bowl and mix them well.Add in couple of eggs and mix well.Now add in half of the flour mixture and fold them gently.Add in the yogurt and mix well.Now add in the remaining flour mixture and fold well.Add half of the batter into the loaf pan and top off with 3/4 of the streusal topping. Cover with the remaining batter and top off with the remaining streusal topping.Bake it preheated oven for 40 to 45 mins till it is completely baked. Insert a skewer into the loaf cake till there is no wet batter on that.Allow the cake to cool down for 15 mins. Invert the cake to a wire rack and allow it to cool down completely.

So far I've tried tons of your dinner recipes, but no sweets. However, as soon as I saw this, I knew it needed to change, because chai masala is one of my favourite drinks ever.

Replacing the butter with oil makes this cake incredibly light. I also love the addition of spice streusel (I used home made masala from your chai recipe). At first the loaf looks like such an innocent teacake, but then you suddenly feel the "punch" and your mouth gets all warm from the spices. Yum!